


hold your devil by his spoke (and spin him to the ground)

by Venetia5



Series: in the midnight of our souls [1]
Category: Midnight Texas (TV)
Genre: A remix of sorts, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Everyone's just a little bit darker and a little bit more dangerous, Everything's just a little bit different from what you know, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 04:18:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17093891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Venetia5/pseuds/Venetia5
Summary: A stranger arrives in Midnight,dust and darkness kicked up in his wake,carrying secrets too heavy for him to bare,and lives that have never belonged to him.A man looking to hide from the world,Who is called a crook, a thief, a liar.He is the only one who knows the truth.He is all those things, and a killer too.-Manfred, on the run from a dangerous man called Hightower, arrives in Midnight, a town a little different from the one you know, where nothing is normal (or sane), where danger has seeped into every crack and crevice, and dark magic oozes out into the night. Even the residents aren't quite as they appear, a little bit darker and deadlier than they pretend to be.As Manfred tries to survive this strange new place, as well as avoiding Hightower and his sinister plans, he might just find that the people closest to him are the ones he needs to watch out for.





	hold your devil by his spoke (and spin him to the ground)

**Author's Note:**

> This is a much darker retelling (and I know you might be thinking, _how can this be darker?_ , but trust me, somehow, it is) of the show. 
> 
> I've followed some of the main plot points, i.e. the first 5 minutes of the show (Manfred on the run from Hightower, Xylda telling him to go to Midnight, Manfred almost being run over by Olivia, meeting Bobo), but that's about it.
> 
> I've also made some changes (a sentence no one likes to read) to the way certain people's supernatural abilities work, and mixed in elements from other fictional works and mythology for creatures such as witches and psychics. Bear with me on this, because I believe it works for the story (hopefully).
> 
> I hope you enjoy this story (and don't find it too depressing or too much of a divergence).

A stranger arrives in Midnight,  
dust and darkness kicked up in his wake,  
carrying secrets too heavy for him to bare,  
and lives that have never belonged to him.

A man looking to hide from the world,  
Who is called a crook, a thief, a liar.  
He is the only one who knows the truth.  
He is all those things, and a killer too.

He walks alongside the dead and buried,  
promising peace and answers and hope,  
that he knows will never come to pass.  
He's promised many untrue things before.

But then he's called saviour, hero, a good man,  
Not thief or liar (or murderer, whispers his mind).  
He convinces himself he can be those things,  
But he should have known that he never could.

Because he's still liar thief con-man ~~murderer~~.

And in this life, he will never be anything else.

 

* * *

 

Xylda had always taught him that what they had was a curse, that they would never be rid of it, no matter how much they tried. It had killed his ancestors, his grandfather, his mother. It had taken Xylda from him. It was only a matter of time before it came for him. It was a disease that had no cure.

Xylda had known all this, and so she'd told him to use it to his own advantage, to make use of this terrible thing that would be his undoing. She said she had decided, when she was young and cynical and resentful of what the world had forced upon her, that she would exploit this burden and use it to make life easier, because if she couldn't be rid of it, then she was going to do whatever she could to make it useful, to make it work for her.

At first, she whispered to him late at night, hands shaking as she tucked him beneath the sheets laid out on the hard bench in the van, she'd done it for the money, trying to make her way across America to the ‘promised land’ of California, where she could hide behind the myriad of other psychics who'd made it their home, hide and hope the dead bothered others, leaving her in peace.

But then, she told him, she'd begun to learn secrets and stories and memories lost to time, ones that could be exploited, not just for monetary gain, but for favours and more beyond. She'd learned of the deaths of mistresses covered up by senators, wives whose husbands killed them in fits of rage, men who would pay handsomely to keep her silence.

He often thought that it was her distrust and hatred of men that caused him to be wary of them too, to be wary of everyone. He could see the secrets that people tried to hide, tried to bury so deep that they’d never see the light of day, and he was not willing to become another body buried beneath the earth, so he avoided everyone, cut himself off, and watched Xylda do her work.

She'd taught Manfred to do the same, to make the gift work for him, rather than be a slave to this curse. _We are powerful_ , she would tell him, _no matter that this power will kill us in the end. We're going to die anyway, so why should we not use it to our advantage, make our lives, however long they may be, more comfortable?_

He'd seen sense in her words, though he'd had to fight his conscience at first. Letting killers walk free, when he had knowledge of their crimes, could find proof that they'd done it, had never sat right with him. But he'd followed Xylda and her unwritten rules and never gone against her, because she was all he had left, and he wasn't willing to lose her too

Occasionally, when she'd been in a generous mood (after he'd pleaded for hours that it _wasn't right, wasn't fair, they couldn't get away with it_ ), or when she'd decided she particularly disliked someone, she'd leave a trail for the police to follow, drop a few anonymous hints here and there. But many times, she went through with her blackmail, when they were deemed too desperate and not dangerous enough to worry about retribution or more deaths.

This was how they'd come to end up running from Hightower. He'd killed his own daughter, believing he'd regain the powers lost by his ancestors’ centuries ago in return for the sacrifice. Manfred had wondered why the man would want to wake up screaming every morning, listening to the whispers of the dead in his dreams, visions of murder and mayhem and such awful things haunting every waking moment. He couldn’t conceive of why anyone would want to be burdened by such things.

Xylda had told him that some people simply craved power, had no regard for the consequences, didn't care what had to be sacrificed on their quest for what they believed would lead them to power, would let them rule.

But they'd underestimated Hightower, underestimated how far he was willing to go, how deep into the darkness he’d already sunk, the evil that stained his soul. They'd thought it was a simple job, normal, the usual kind: a man kills his daughter, covers it up, goes on with his life. They hadn't known until it was too late.

It had been Manfred who'd first found Violet, her spirit lingering in an empty warehouse on the wrong side of town, the perfect place to find the dead, especially those who had been murdered. He thought she might have been pretty once, before, with golden curls tumbling down her back, and bright blue, intelligent eyes.

Her face had been caved in, left cheekbone smashed, and jawbone shattered, eye hanging half out of the socket, most of her teeth missing or cracked, skin sagging like it had simply been draped over her bones, and he hadn't been able to understand her at first, her speech garbled and slurred.

He'd sprinkled grave dirt on the floor, a thick layer of it, a substitute for the Ouija board still tucked under the front seat in the van. Xylda had dropped him off on the outskirts of town, told him to find a spirit while she searched the town for a witches' shop. They were running low on salt and herbs and other things, she'd told him as she sent him away with a wave.

Violet's translucent fingers had scratched away at the dirt, revealing her father's sins, telling Manfred of how the first blow hadn't killed her, hadn't been designed to kill, only to stun. She told him of how she'd been awake, unable to scream, only moan and whimper, vision blurred by blood and tears and dirt, watching in mute horror as her once loving father had raised the knife.

He'd tried to comfort her as she cried, had felt bad for this poor girl, a girl whom he'd seen a hundred times before. A girl who loved a man more than anything else, whether he be father, brother, lover. A loving girl who died a lonely death at the hands of a man who became a monster. A loving, lonely girl who would never receive justice, never be able to move on, cursed with a half-life, between the realm of the living and the dead, stuck until the one who took her life was dead as well. He felt for her, as he had all the other before her.

She hadn't tried to possess him, as others before her had, to seek revenge on her father, nor had she pleaded with him to kill her father, to tell the police, to obtain justice. She had simply bared the contents of her death to him and expected nothing in return. In retrospect, he should have known then that something was wrong, this girl who was like so many others before her, and yet like none of the others before her.

She told him, later, after, that it was because she'd known her father couldn't be stopped, had known that her death, her sacrifice, unwilling, had completed the ritual, had transformed the man into the monster. Manfred knew that Hightower had been a monster long before the ritual had been completed, had become a monster when he had decided power was worth the price of a human life, his daughter’s life.

But he hadn't told Violet this, had instead turned his face away from the pale girl, towards the wall of the van, and refused to let her see the tears that trailed down his cheeks, refused to give voice to the pain that was eating away at him, slowly, from the inside. The grief had gnawed away at him until he’d given in, stopped at the next off-license, and picked up six bottles of bourbon, the good stuff, and a knife, small and sharp. If he was going to kill himself, by poisoning himself slowly, or by carving lines across his wrists, the same way his mother had, he would have what he needed.

That first night, he’d finished two of the bottles of amber liquid by himself, drowning everything out – the pain, the voices, the guilt that was crushing his lungs, that made it impossible to breathe sometimes, that burned every time he took a breath and remembered. He’d passed out soon afterwards, had woken up face down on the floor, covered in his own vomit and blood from where he’d hit his head, head pounding worse than any possession hangover he’d ever had. He’d stayed there for hours, limbs too heavy and head too loud to contemplate moving.

It hadn’t stopped him from drinking, getting blackout drunk, he’d just been more careful about it. He’d quickly learned how to drive while hungover or still half drunk, to avoid main roads where police cars would lay in wait and keep to back roads instead.

He learned a lot in those few months, learned how to survive without Xylda, learned how difficult it was to survive on your own when you had no money, no education, no way to support yourself other than shaking down the dishonest with a curse you had no control over.

He learned other things, too, things that he drank to forget. He learned what happened when he picked the wrong mark to try and hustle. He learned what happened when he couldn’t keep his mouth shut, learned what happened to _pretty boys_ who ran their mouths off and didn’t know when to stop. He learned how to make ends meet when he had no money, when the little that Xylda had put by finally ran out, in the dank back alleys of the city, where people weren’t particularly choosy as long as their needs were met.

He learned a lot in those first few months alone.

But he never learned how to block it all out.

 

* * *

 

The first time Xylda had appeared, Manfred had dropped the flask of bourbon he'd slowly been chugging, cursing as it had soaked into the threadbare carpet on the van. He'd later congratulated himself on not screaming, but that had only been because he'd already been drunk at that point. He’d been convinced he was dreaming at first, or hallucinating, wondering if mixing bourbon and diazepam could cause that.

But Xylda had told him Hightower was hunting him, determined that the secret of Violet's death and his power would die with Manfred, that there would be no one to stop him. He’d known then that he hadn’t been hallucinating, that she was still with him, in a sense, like all the other women Manfred had seen throughout his life, had been unable to help. Xylda was stuck in that half-life with them now. He’d felt guilty all over again. He’d condemned her, first to death, and now to this limbo.

She'd told him to run, to keep running, to use every trick in the book, run every con on every mark, and make like hell across the country like she’d done when she'd been younger than him.

He'd asked her where he was going.

_Somewhere safe_ , had been her only reply, her dull blue eyes tracking the road ahead, white hair tamed into a small plait that he'd only seen her wear in pictures from her youth. He’d supposed it had probably reminded her of that time, but he’d never asked. Xylda shared what she wanted to, would never tell him when he pushed, would press her lips together and refuse to say anything more. It had frustrated him to no end, but he’d learned that it was her nature, that there was nothing he could do.

So, he’d bitten his lip and held back his questions and followed her directions, the radio humming in the background, volume turned down low, as they drove along endless dusty roads, blue sky stretching out for miles in every direction.

"Texas?" He'd questioned as he'd seen the welcome sign, a single blot on the endless expanse of dust and desert.

"Texas," she'd repeated, offering no explanation, simply staring out the window and watching the occasional tumbleweed float by.

 

* * *

 

"I was here once before, many years ago," Xylda's voice broke through the monotony of country and western music that had been playing in the background, and Manfred was thankful for the excuse to turn it off.

"How long ago?" He asked, hoping that she wouldn't clam up, that her eyes wouldn't glaze over and gaze distantly into nothing but distant memories, as she normally did whenever Manfred asked about her life before he came to her.

"Oh, it must be almost 60 years ago now. I was a young girl, that much I remember. It was when I was travelling across this godforsaken country to what I thought would be salvation. Do you remember, Manny, when I told you about that?"

Manfred wasn't sure if he was supposed to answer, his grandmother gazing unseeingly out of the window, so he settled for a nod, a small "yes" making its way from his lips. He wasn't sure if she'd heard him, but she sighed and rested her head on her hand.

"I was so naïve. I thought I could outrun this curse. I thought that things would be different if I found people like me." She paused for a moment as she brushed a wisp of hair from her face. "I wasn't just naïve, I was stupid, too. I thought that I'd be able to hide behind other supernaturals, that I could be safe from my own nightmares. Stupid and wrong," she muttered as she shifted her seat, tucking the persistent wisp of hair behind her ear.

"Other supernaturals?" He questioned. As far as he knew, there were psychics and there were spirits and there was Hightower. Xylda had never told him about other supernaturals. But then, he reasoned, she probably hadn't told him about a lot of things.

"It's nothing for you to concern yourself with now, Manny. I'll tell you when you get there," she dismissed the question with a wave of her hand, before dissolving into the aether, disappearing from sight, an annoying habit she'd had even before she was dead, as a means of avoiding questions she didn't want to answer.

 

* * *

 

"'Midnight'? What kind of name is 'Midnight' for a town?" He asked as they drove past a sign proclaiming that this apparently 'safe haven' was only three miles away.

"An apt one," Xylda said, appearing behind him, and he van swerved alarmingly as his hands jumped on the steering wheel.

"Jesus, grandma! You trying to kill me before Hightower gets to me?" He shouted, glaring in offence at her as he got the van under control. She simply raised an eyebrow at him, motioning for him to keep his eyes on the road.

"I need you to listen to me, Manfred," she said, her voice low and serious, as the silhouette of a cluster of buildings appeared on the horizon. He waited for a moment for Xylda to continue, only looking up when she stayed silent. “Listen.”

"I'm listening, grandma," he said, eyes drifting between hers and the road.

"Midnight is safe, and the Midnighters will protect you, when they know who and what you are, but don't trust anyone. Trust will get you killed, you got that? Trust no one." She brought her face close to his, reaching out to his face in her hands, before remembering that could not do so as she looked at her own pale hands. "I wish I could be here for you Manfred, more than I am now. I didn't want to leave you to deal with this alone, but you have to now. I'll help you, _they'll_ help you, they won't let anyone else hurt you, but you can't trust them not to hurt you themselves. Are you listening? Do you understand?" She searched his face, blue eyes boring into his own, and, apparently satisfied that he'd received her message, loud and clear, she slumped into the seat next to him.

"How can I expect them to protect me, trust them to protect me from harm, while I'm worried that they're gonna be the ones to hurt me? What other kinds of supernaturals are there, grandma?" He asked, desperately, the view of the town becoming clearer as they neared it. He wanted to turn around, to go back, to what he wasn’t sure. Safety, perhaps? Normality, at least. He wanted to drive 500 miles and 200 days back to when Xylda had still been with him, go back to before Hightower and Violet and terrifying visions of dark clouds in the sky.

"Trust me when I say that they'll protect you. Trust me when I say that they'll try to use you. And trust me when I say that there are more supernatural creatures out there than you can believe. The last time I was here, the town was infested by a nest of vampires. I've heard that there's a witch and a were-creature here now too, but that's only from spirits I met before I passed. You need to be careful, Manfred," she said, as they pulled into a parking space on the high street, or, more accurately, the only street Manfred could see.

The town reminded Manfred of those books he'd read when he was younger that were set in the desert, how the hero could see from one end of town to the next down a single dusty road. Midnight was reminiscent of those books, and Manfred wondered if his grandmother's plan involved him dying of boredom before Hightower found him. She'd tried to kill him once today already. It wouldn't surprise him. It would still be a better death than whatever Hightower planned for him.

He hopped out of the RV, following Xylda as she led him down the street to the pawn shop, and narrowly avoided being run over by a black car that came screeching to a halt in front of the shop. A woman with a red wig and black sunglasses, clad in all black and carrying a case, stepped down from the truck, and Manfred was struck by the impression of gangster movies and instrument cases with hidden guns.

He only saw the spirit trailing behind her as she walked along the street, her boots clacking on the pavements like rounds of gunfire, the spirit seeming lost and confused as he followed behind her. He was a young man, early 20s, with short brown hair, deep brown eyes, and a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. Manfred stopped walking.

_An assassin?_ He thought, as he watched her open a door next to the shop window and closed it with a loud bang that made both Manfred and the spirit jump. _What kind of town have you brought us to, grandma?_

"Go in there and ask for a man, a vampire, named Lemuel Bridger." Xylda's voice snapped Manfred out of his visions, before he fell down the rabbit hole and became stuck watching the deaths caused by the woman in the wig. He looked up and saw his grandmother pointing to the pawn shop, watching as she sighed and disappeared through the wall, hand reappearing momentarily, motioning for him to follow.

The bell over the door rang as he entered, though Manfred could barely hear it over the cacophony of sounds that suddenly assaulted him, couldn’t see the shop in front of him as his vision began to blur.

Thundering hooves, yelling, screaming, battle cries and calls of 'Charge!' merging with sinister lullabies, the sound of a rocking chair creaking back and forth, bitter mutterings and vicious cursing, children weeping and wailing, the sounds of knives sliding through flesh, the pitter-patter of liquid spattering onto floorboards.

Manfred clutched at his head, bending over, and he sank to his knees, one hand reaching for the pills that he kept in his jacket pocket, and several brightly coloured pills dropped into his shaking hand. He threw them down, not caring how many he was taking, simply wanting the unbearable noise and pain to stop. He swallowed them dry, relishing the burn in his throat distracting him from the pain in his head.

The noise had only just begun to die down when a hand touched his shoulder, and he looked up, startled, before registering the concerned expression of a man standing before him, and his grandmother, peering over the man's shoulder. He was tall, handsome, with short brown hair, deep brown eyes, tanned skin, and a dangerous air surrounding him. Exactly Manfred’s type. And probably someone he shouldn’t trust, according to his grandmother.

The man helped him to his feet, steadying him as he swayed on the spot, and led him over to one of the chairs in the back room, before disappearing for a moment.

Xylda looked him over briefly, eyes speaking of more worry than she’d ever expressed when she was alive, before criticising him for taking too many pills again. Manfred was glad when the stranger returned, carrying a glass of water and yet more pills, ordinary painkillers, rather than the heavy dose prescription both Manfred and Xylda had taken when they first discovered that pills could block out the voices and visions just as well as alcohol could.

The stranger handed him the glass, and he accepted it gratefully, swallowing it down in big, greedy gulps, only pausing to slip yet more pills onto his tongue, before he'd drained the glass dry.

"Thank you," he rasped as he placed the glass on the table.

"You're welcome," the stranger drawled as he took the seat opposite Manfred in an office chair that looked like it was fairly uncomfortable. Manfred didn’t have the wherewithal to feel guilty about the fact that he was probably sitting in the only comfy chair in the office.

"You feelin' ok now?" The man asked, genuine concern in his voice.

"Yeah, better now. Just felt a bit dizzy before."

Xylda had once told Manfred that half-truths were easier to pull off than lies. Stick as close to the truth as possible, she'd once told him, without actually telling the truth. People believe half-truths more easily than lies.

"Well good, 'm glad you're feeling better. Name's Bobo Winthrop. And who would you be? I ain't seen you around before. Just passing through?" He asked, tilting his head, and Manfred caught sight of a scar running up the side of his neck, disappearing into his dark hair. It was twisted and ragged, as though whatever had caused it had been dragged and twisted as it sliced through his skin.

"Manfred," he said, reaching out to shake the other's hand, resisting the urge to jump when he made contact with his skin, an electric shock running up his arm and down his spine. The pills he'd taken beforehand made it almost impossible for Manfred to catch any glimpses of the man's life, and he was grateful for small mercies. The man seemed friendly enough, and for once Manfred was willing to stay ignorant to whatever secrets he had. Ignorance was, after all, bliss. "And, uh, I'm actually looking for someone called Lemuel Bridger," he finished uncertainly, watching as the Bobo's eyes because guarded.

"And what exactly do you want with Lem?" He questioned, voice colder and more hostile than before. Bobo drew back, crossed his arms over his chest. _Typical defensive manoeuvre_ , Manfred could hear his grandmother telling him, years ago, when she'd been teaching him how to run a con on someone, trying to help him move on from picking pockets and opening locks.

He looked over Bobo's shoulder at Xylda, who was still hovering around. "Go on, tell him. He'll find out soon enough, might as well get it over with," she urged, motioning for him to continue. Bobo tracked Manfred's gaze over his shoulder and seemed confused when he saw nothing but blank wall.

"My grandma, Xylda, told me that I should find him," he said, and continued at Bobo's sceptical look. "She told me that he was a vampire and that I needed to come to Midnight to find him." Not strictly true, but he needed Bobo to trust him, at least enough to tell him where this Lemuel was exactly. But, he also didn't want to reveal quite what he was or why he was here, not just yet. After all, Xylda had told him not to trust anyone. He was only following her advice, though by her raised eyebrow and crossed arms, he doubted she'd agree.

Bobo's stiff posture relaxed, though only slightly, still keeping his arms crossed, but the air around them no longer felt quite as charged, or quite as dangerous. "Well, Lem ain't around just yet, but I'll let him know you're here when I see him. Now, do you wanna answer my other questions?" Manfred racked his brain, trying to think of everything the Southerner had asked him, but he drew a blank. "You just passin' through? Or are you thinkin' of stayin'?"

Manfred looked once again to his grandmother. “Staying. For a while, at least,” was the answer he settled on. Xylda raised an eyebrow, and Manfred had to resist the urge to glare at her, reminding himself that they were in the presence of others. This town, with its haunted pawn shop and contract killer residents, didn’t exactly seem like the safest place he could be, regardless of Xylda’s assurances or the problem of his supernatural stalker.

His answer seemed to please the other man though. “Well, if you’re thinking of staying, you’re probably gonna need something a bit more permanent than that RV. Did you see the little blue house further up the street?” He asked, and Manfred recalled having seen a small, blue house with a white veranda as he’d driven into the town, set back from the road and with enough room to park a couple of cars out front. He nodded.

“Well, Lem and I own that, and we rent it out to people who plan on sticking around for a while. If you’re needing a more permanent place to stay, I’d be happy to rent it out to you.”

Manfred appraised the man in front of him as he considered his offer. He seemed genuine enough, kind and welcoming, but he just couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something slightly dangerous about this man.

But if he was going to stick around for a while, as Xylda seemed to want him to, he was going to need somewhere more permanent than the trailer.  The kitchen was only good for heating things up in the microwave, the oven having broken long ago, and there were only so many meals of takeaways and reheated beans that he could take before he went mad.

“I’ll definitely keep that in mind, thanks for the offer.” It was as close to a non-answer as he could get while still trying to be friendly. He wanted to meet this _Lemuel Bridger_ first before he made any decisions. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Xylda, it was just that she herself had said that it had been many years since she’d been in Midnight. Things changed, and the only person looking out for Manfred now was himself. Xylda wasn’t able to look after him anymore, not as she once had done, and he wanted to see for himself whether or not he’d be as safe in this town as she thought he’d be.

“Good. Listen, Lem’s gonna be a while, I think. Why don’t you head on over to the diner across the street? S’called Home Cookin’. Tell Madonna that I sent you, that she should put you in the Midnighter’s room. I’ll let Lem know that you’re waiting there for him when he shows up. Shouldn’t be more than a couple of hours.” Bobo flashed him an almost blinding smile, and ushered Manfred towards the front door, pointing across the street towards an old brick building.

_So,_ Manfred thought to himself as he headed in the direction Bobo had pointed, _waiting it is._

 

* * *

 

Night had just fallen when Lemuel Bridger finally showed up at the diner. As per Bobo’s instructions, Manfred had found Madonna and repeated Bobo’s request. He noticed the way that some of the other patrons had side-eyed him as Madonna had led him towards a room at the back, through a set of large sliding doors, and into a completely private room.

He’d felt awkward at first, until he’d noticed that he wasn’t alone.

Then he’d felt downright embarrassed.

“Reverend Emilio Sheehan,” was how he’d introduced himself when Manfred had taken a seat halfway down from where the man was sitting, trying to be neither rude nor intrusive.

“Manfred Bernardo."

They’d talked a bit after the introductions, slightly awkward small talk that made Manfred wince. He’d always known he wasn’t good at small talk, Xylda had delighted in telling him that, before criticising him and telling him how important it was to get a mark to trust him. How could one pull off a con if they couldn’t even make small talk, let alone convince someone that they were getting something for nothing?

The thing was, Manfred didn’t want to talk about the weather (it was always hot and sunny in Texas), nor about his own reasons for being in Midnight (because that would have raised so many questions, none of which he would have been able to answer). He wanted to ask the man what it was that he’d felt when their hands had touched, like there was something moving, _existing_ , beneath the other man’s skin, a separate entity that was somehow part of him.

Instead, he’d left the man to his food, had ordered a meal of his own when Madonna had asked him if there was anything she could get him, and thought on the possibility that there were more supernatural people in this town than he’d first thought, and more unusual supernaturals than vampires.

It was only when he saw Xylda appear at the edge of his vision that he realised ‘Lem’ had arrived, the name both the Reverend and Bobo had called him. He saw her motioning behind him and turned to face the man she’d sent him to meet.

“You must be Manfred.” It was more of a statement than a question, but Manfred still felt obliged to answer. “I’m Lemuel Bridger. Bobo told me that you were looking for me earlier. I’m very sorry that I was indisposed earlier, work was keeping me busy.”

He looked Manfred over with an assessing gaze, and Manfred felt yet another shock travel through his body when he touched the man’s hand. It was different from the shock that he’d felt when he shook Bobo’s hand – that had felt more like a spark of lightning, or the flash-bang from a gun. This felt like an electric shock that turned his hand numb, and a pulling sensation followed, as though the energy was being drained from his body.

_Is this how all vampires feel?_

“May I ask how it is that you know my name?” Lem enquired, and Manfred repressed the urge to run far, _far_ away from this strange town and its strange inhabitants.

“My grandmother told me that I should find you,” he replied truthfully. “Her name was Xylda.”

“Gypsy Xylda?” He said it with a degree of awe that surprised Manfred. He’d never heard someone react to his grandma’s name like that before, though he’d never really met anyone who knew his grandma either. “She’s your grandmother?”

“She was. She died, throat cancer, last year,” he admitted, trying to swallow down the well of emotions he could feel rising up his throat, threatening to choke him. She was gone, and there was nothing he could do, and it wouldn’t do to have these strangers see him weak.

“I’m sorry for your loss.” Despite the offer of condolences, Manfred could tell that the man was still distracted. “She was a remarkable woman.”

Manfred wondered what exactly it was that she’d done to inspire such awe in a man such as Lemuel. To him, Xylda had always been Xylda, his grandmother who ran cons and seemed to dislike all men and was a pathological liar, even to the point of lying to family members in order to get what she wanted. She was simply Xylda.

“You said that she told you to find me.” Lemuel’s words snapped Manfred back to the present. “You have your grandmother’s gift then?”

Manfred wanted to kick himself. He knew that Xylda had told him to tell these people what he could do, but after a lifetime of keeping his “gift” hidden, of keeping everyone in the dark, the instinct ingrained in him warred with what she’d told him. He wanted to deny it, maybe tell this virtual stranger that she’d told him before she died, but Manfred knew that that wouldn’t make sense.

“You could say that,” was the answer he settled on, because it was mostly the truth, and he didn’t feel like trying to concoct a feeble story that he reckoned this man would be able to see through in a minute. He ignored her raised eyebrow and the way she crossed her arms across her chest, cocking her hip, her stance conveying that she wasn’t impressed with what he was doing. “She told me to tell you who I was, and what I was,” he added.

“And why would Gypsy Xylda tell you to come here, to Midnight?”

Manfred could tell that Lemuel already knew why he was here. After all, why else would someone travel to a town in the middle of nowhere, where they had no ties, no job or place to stay, unless they were running or hiding from something? Manfred got the feeling that everyone who lived here was hiding from something. He wondered what it was that someone like the Reverend was hiding from, or all-American, red-blooded Bobo. Most likely it was nothing good.

“Because I’m in trouble, and I need somewhere to lay low for a while,” he admitted honestly. He could see the Reverend out of the corner of his eye, still eating his food, but quite obviously listening the to their conversation. He saw the man’s face shift slightly at the mention of trouble, but couldn’t decipher the meaning behind it, couldn’t tell whether it was worry, surprise, or something else. “A man named Hightower is trying to kill me.”

That got him a raised eyebrow from both men. “Well, we look out for each other here in Midnight. You’ll be safe as long as you’re here.” The way Lemuel said it almost sounded like he was making an oath of some sort. Manfred hoped it wasn’t an oath or spell or some such, not that he had much experience with that. He was just going to lay low until Hightower forgot about him or moved on, or until Manfred deemed it safe enough to move on somewhere else; somewhere with a Starbucks and more than one diner.

However, he was polite enough and grateful enough to thank the man. Some guarantee of safety was better than constantly looking over his shoulder, waiting for Hightower to appear and rip him to pieces. “Thank you, Mr Bridger.”

Manfred was, however, very confused when Lemuel placed a key into his hand. “It’s Lem, please. And Bobo thought you might need this. He asked me to tell you that you may stay there tonight, and you can over the terms together tomorrow morning, here at 8am.”

Manfred resisted the urge to groan, and instead offered the man the sincerest smile he could manage, which, given that he’d effectively been told that he had to wake up at a ridiculous hour tomorrow, probably wasn’t his best. In fact, he was fairly certain that it was a grimace, but Lem gave no indication that he noticed, instead taking the seat across from the Reverend and ordering a steak from the pretty waitress who came to take his order.

Manfred assumed that he’d effectively been dismissed and given that he didn’t have anything else to do, he decided to head towards where he’d parked his RV and gather up his things.

 

* * *

 

Manfred woke up to the unholy sound of the alarm on his phone pinging from the other side of the room. He groaned softly, and buried his head beneath the covers once more, trying to block out both the noise and the light streaming in through the thin curtains. If he was going to be staying here, he’d definitely have to look into getting some heavier curtains.

It was a few moments after that thought crossed his mind that he shot upright, almost throwing himself out of the bed in his haste to check the time on his phone.

7:25.

He had about half an hour to get himself ready, and then across to the diner, and he had no doubt that he was in desperate need of a shower. Showers at crappy motels and slightly fancier gas stations could only do so much, and he didn’t even want to think about how bad he must have looked and smelled yesterday when he’d met both Bobo and Lem. He couldn’t actually remember the last time he’d managed to find a laundrette cheap enough to wash his clothes at, which was rather worrying when he thought about it.

He grabbed the cleanest (i.e. least pungent) set of clothes from the bottom of his bag and practically flung himself into the shower, wincing when he saw that the water flowing down the plughole was practically black as he washed his hair. At least he’d be able to see the slight blonde tint in his hair after this.

Having managed to clean off the worst of the grime, he almost brained himself on the bathroom floor in his haste to get dressed and out of the door, only stopping briefly to pick up a cookie from the plate that he’d discovered the night before when he’d finished moving his meagre belongings from the RV into the little house. They’d tasted slightly odd, a tang in their aftertaste of something he couldn’t quite place, something that reminded him of his childhood with Xylda, but he’d pushed it to the back of his mind, deeming it not to be important, since they didn’t seem to be poisoned and were still delicious.

He closed the front door behind him, wondering whether or not he should lock it, before deciding that he really didn’t have that much to steal, and that Midnight didn’t seem like the kind of town where you had to lock your door.

A cloud of dust was kicked up in his wake as he hurried over towards the diner, cursing as he looked at his watch and realised that he was already late. He bolted through the door to the diner, only narrowly missing running into a blonde woman who was on her way out.

He froze in place when he realised that it was the woman from the day before. Normally, she would have been virtually unrecognisable, her disguise enough to fool even a trained eye. But Manfred could see what most other people couldn’t. Namely, the same dead body trailing after her as she headed out of diner, eyeing Manfred suspiciously.

He was still staring after her when a hand landed heavily on his shoulder, startling him. He turned to find Bobo, a smile fixed on his face, though there was something not quite right about it, something _false_. Manfred recognised it as the same kind of smile he gave people whenever they asked him if he was ok, a question he’d usually brush off with a simple ‘ _fine’_ and the same kind of smile Bobo was giving him now.

“You alright, Manfred? Look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

From any other person, in any other place, Manfred would have laughed it off, would have brushed aside the unease he felt trickle down his spine at the words and banished it to the darkest corners of his mind, forgotten. But this was Midnight, a place that didn’t feel quite so safe, that didn’t feel _right_ , somehow, and he got the feeling that if he brushed things aside, ignored them, ignored his instincts screaming at him to _run_ , then he might just end up in a whole lot of trouble.

So, instead, he settled on a muttered _yes_ , before he bolted for the back room, aware that he was being rude, but unable to collect his thoughts when everything was so loud and bright and there were spirits hovering at the edge of his vision. He could sense Bobo, following closely behind him, heard the doors to the room slide shut behind them as he dropped into the nearest chair, could almost feel the heat radiating off the man behind him as Bobo stood by his chair, before dropping into the one next to Manfred.

Manfred was about to try and think of some muddled excuse for his behaviour, try and stutter out some sort of explanation, when Bobo spoke up.

“Lem explained your… _situation_ , to me last night, told me why you’re here in Midnight, what you can do.” The words were murmured, voice so low even Manfred, sitting only a couple of feet away, could barely hear him, and he wondered why the other man was bothering, since they were alone, and no one was likely to interrupt them.

“Did you see something when Olivia walked past?” Despite keeping his tone gentle, as though he was pretending not to pry, Manfred knew better.

Manfred was about to ask who the hell Olivia was, when it twigged.

_Assassin._

“Possibly,” was the vaguest answer he could think to give, and from the tic in Bobo’s jaw and the way he tensed, ever so slightly, he could tell that the other man believed it to be too vague as well. Manfred wanted him to realise that he wasn’t simply going to answer all their questions, tell them everything and trust them blindly, even if, so far, that seemed to be what Xylda wanted him to do. “I see a lot of things.”

_If they only knew._

Manfred saw the way his nostrils flared slightly, the way his jaw clenched, the way his fingers twitched faintly, as though itching to curl into fists and beat the truth out of him.

_What the hell are you?_ He thought, staring at the man in front of him, someone who seemed so much like the boy-next-door, right up until you pissed him off and he decided to cave your head in with his bare hands.

Manfred felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as a feeling of _danger_ washed over his skin. He wanted to leave, wanted to race back to the RV and floor it until the town was simply a speck in his rear-view mirror.

But, rationally, he knew he couldn’t, knew that however dangerous Midnight and its residents seemed to be, what was waiting for him out there was worse, knew that _Hightower_ was worse than this man who might beat him to death. That, at least, would be quick, painless, compared to what Hightower had in store for him. He wanted to laugh at how skewed his view on death had become.

Manfred watched as Bobo consciously relaxed his fists, and he felt his own body relax in turn, not even aware that he’d tensed up in the first place.

“Did you see a dead body, a spirit?”

It was too direct a question for Manfred to be able to lie convincingly, he knew it, and somehow, this stranger did too. He racked his brain, thinking for a way to dance around the truth, but there were no half-truths that he could spin.

“Yeah.” It almost felt like an admission of guilt, but he brushed those feelings aside. He hadn’t lied before, merely withheld the truth, and he’d stopped feeling guilty over his _gift_ a long time ago.

“Well, I guess I’d better explain, before you go calling the police.” The slight chuckle Bobo forced out sounded so strained to Manfred that he didn’t know why Bobo had bothered. If it had been an attempt to lighten the mood, Manfred was tempted to point out that murder was a particularly _light_ subject.

“Seeing as how we know your secret now, guess she won’t mind me sharing a couple of hers.” Irrationally, Manfred wanted to somehow snatch his secrets back, to take back everything he’d told Lem, but he knew it wasn’t possible. “Olivia’s killed people. Only bad people, mind. And in self-defence, mostly, when they’ve gone after her, or after someone else –”

Manfred knew bullshit when he heard it and cut Bobo off before he could finish. “She’s a killer. An assassin.”

The twitching in his fingers started up again.

“Lem was right,” Bobo said, but didn’t offer an explanation for his words. “Yeah, alright. Olivia’s a killer. But the people she’s killed, they’ve deserved it.”

“Somehow I doubt they see it that way.” Manfred wanted to kick himself as soon as the words left his mouth. He shouldn’t be antagonising this man, he should be appeasing him before getting the hell out.

“Well, then, I guess you’ll have to take that up with Olivia.”

“Maybe I will.” He’d wanted it to sound like a challenge, still, stupidly, trying to antagonise Bobo, trying to push him, so that he could _see_ him, see what Bobo really was. Sometimes, if he pushed hard enough, he could get a feel for someone, a sense for what they were, what they had done and were capable of doing.

Bobo snorted, something genuine this time, though mocking too, and looked at Manfred as though he were a kitten growling at a tiger. “Well, good luck with that. Let me know how it goes.”

Bobo was still chuckling at the idea when the next words flew out of Manfred’s mouth, bypassing his brain-to-mouth filter before he could stop them and decide that _seeing_ Bobo really wasn’t worth his own untimely demise.

“I think the police might agree with me.”

_Well,_ Manfred thought, between imagining his own death at Bobo’s hands, _he’s stopped laughing._

Bobo’s fingers did clench into fists this time, and Manfred only had a second to register the darkness behind his eyes, before a hand had wrapped round his throat, forcing him down to his knees.

He clawed weakly at the hand that was busy cutting off his air supply, tried hitting Bobo, but the angle was all wrong, he couldn’t even get his legs beneath him, his feet kicking out ineffectually against the floorboards.

He tried to choke something out, a plea, he thought, or a threat, but his brain was too busy panicking over a lack of oxygen, over the imminent danger he was in, for him to know what he was doing.

Bobo leant down towards Manfred, the steady grip he had on his throat never wavering as his lips brushed over Manfred’s ear. Bobo was close enough that Manfred could feel his warm breath puffing over his skin, stirring stray strands of his hair.

“If you ever threaten Olivia, or any of us again, if you even _think_ about calling the police here, I will kill you.” It was whispered softly in his ear, in a way that Manfred imagined a lover might tell someone a secret. There weren’t any elaborations or wild descriptions, no extolling of just how bad it would be for Manfred if he talked – it wasn’t needed. Manfred knew that Bobo could kill him, would be perfectly content killing him here and now, but for the questions it might raise.

“Do we have an understanding?”

Manfred nodded his head tentatively, as much as the grip around his neck would allow, and choked out a breathless “yes”, before the fingers around his throat disappeared, and he was left choking and gasping as air flooded back into his lungs. He stayed there, kneeling on the floor at Bobo’s feet as the other man retook his seat, and took a long, slow swig from a beer bottle that had materialised at some point, his eyes firmly fixed on Manfred as he continued to sputter and rub at the abused skin of his neck.

“About the house,” Bobo said, as though the past five minutes hadn’t occurred, and Manfred looked at him disbelievingly. “Rent is $400 a month, seeing as how we don’t get a lot of folks wanting to stay round here –”

“I wonder why.”

Bobo continued as though Manfred hadn’t spoken, though Manfred saw the corner of his mouth twitch up. Unsure whether it was amusement or annoyance responsible, he decided to keep quiet.

“– and I take rent at the start of the month, just so you’re not tempted to skip out on us.”

Manfred wanted to be offended but couldn’t find the energy. And Bobo wasn’t exactly wrong in his assessment of Manfred with that sentence. He and Xylda had skipped out on more than one place when they’d had no money and things had been just a bit too tight. They hadn’t stayed in many places, hadn’t needed to with the RV, but sometimes they’d wanted a break from the endless driving, Manfred had always wanted to settle down, at least for a little bit, before the got back on the road. Still, despite the fact that they had rarely settle anywhere, he could admit that they’d skipped out on the rent of more than half the places they’d stayed. Not everyone was as smart as Bobo was being.

“I think I’d rather stay in the RV, thanks,” he choked out, resisting the urge to glare at the man and flip him off. He wasn’t sure he wanted to stay in a house that Bobo had the keys to, where he could come in and strangle Manfred in the middle of the night. Morbid, but, given what had just happened, definitely within the realm of possibility.

“You’re not gonna want to do that for long. Midnight ain’t quite as safe at night as it is during the day.” There was a warning in those words, and a hint that Bobo knew more than he was letting on, unsurprisingly.

“Doesn’t seem that safe during the day.”

“Trust me, at night, it’s worse.”

And weren’t those ominous words. Manfred wished he could bring Xylda back simply so that he could kill her himself. She’d guided him to this town of horrors, promising him a safe haven, and instead, it was turning out to be hell on earth.

“How is it worse?” They weren’t the words he’d wanted to ask. He’d been planning to ask what the fastest way out of town and back to normality was. But he wanted to know, his curiosity had got the better of him.

“You know how things go bump in the night? Well, a lot more of them go bump here, in Midnight, than they do in other places. And they tend to do more than make noise.”

Somehow, he’d managed to stumble across the Texan, hick-town version of Silent Hill, or perhaps Derry, Maine. Manfred thought that he’d probably have to give up reading Stephen King novels if he were going to stay in Midnight.

“Thanks for the ominous warnings, but I think I’ll be alright,” Manfred said as he climbed to his feet, and he headed towards the sliding doors, only pausing when Bobo’s voice rang out once again.

“Manfred, if you change your mind, you can find me in the pawn shop.” He paused for a moment, as if deciding whether or not to say whatever was on his mind. “And whatever you do, don’t go out on Friday night.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave con-crit in the comments if you wish too, and kudos is love. Thank you so much for reading :)


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